President Buchanan and his advisers,
as well as Senator Douglas, accepted this condition repeatedly and
emphatically. But when the new governor went to the Territory, he soon
became convinced, and reported to his chief, that to make a slave State
of Kansas was a delusive hope. "Indeed," he wrote, "it is universally
admitted here that the only real question is this: whether Kansas shall
be a conservative, constitutional, Democratic, and ultimately free
State, or whether it shall be a Republican and abolition State."
As a compensation for the disappointment, however, he wrote later direct
to the President:
"But we must have a slave State out of the southwestern Indian
Territory, and then a calm will follow; Cuba be acquired with the
acquiescence of the North; and your administration, having in reality
settled the slavery question, be regarded in all time to come as a
re-signing and re-sealing of the Constitution.... I shall be pleased
soon to hear from you. Cuba! Cuba! (and Porto Rico, if possible) should
be the countersign of your administration, and it will close in a blaze
of glory."
And the governor was doubtless much gratified to receive the President's
unqualified indorsement in reply: "On the question of submitting the
constitution to the _bona fide_ resident settlers of Kansas, I am
willing to stand or fall.
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